Michigan’s flailing offense main culprit in sideways season, 13-6 OT loss to Indiana

ANN ARBOR — Defensive back Smith Snowden said what a couple million Michigan football fans have probably been thinking. 

“It sucks, honestly,” Snowden said. 

Specifically, Snowden was discussing Michigan’s defense seemingly perpetually taking the field, parrying away opposing offenses at an elite level, and not seeing any headway on the scoreboard because the offense didn't produce. Smith completed his thought on Saturday afternoon with the requisite line about the defense needing to do its job and emphasized his belief in the offensive personnel and their abilities — "it’s not a talent problem," Snowden said — but on Saturday afternoon, after the Wolverine’s most recent performance, there was no running from the uncomfortable, inescapable reality. 

Michigan’s (4-3, 1-3 B1G) offense is bad and bereft of answers. 

The Wolverines cannot run the ball with any consistency and a quarterback swap, starting Tommy Carr on Saturday in an eventual 13-6 loss to Indiana in overtime, fully unmasked that this isn’t a quarterback-centric shortcoming. Bryce Underwood has his failings, but it turns out so does this overall combination of scheme, coaches and personnel. 

The rot is deep, and the accountability for the issues increasingly points to coaching, namely offensive coordinator Jason Beck and, ergo, head coach Kyle Whittingham, who deflected blame from his OC in the aftermath of the loss on Saturday. 

“I’m not going to say he’s struggling,” Whittingham said of Beck, while also pointing out all the blame ultimately comes back to him as the head coach. 

On Saturday vs. the defending national champions, Michigan looked listless for most of the game on offense. It was another sub-100 yard half through the first 30 minutes, and Michigan got shutout until later in the third quarter. 

Carr sprinkled in a few nice plays — a few well-timed throws vs. zone coverage to JJ Buchanan and a nice half-field read comebacker to Andrew Marsh — with just as many head scratchers throughout his performance, mostly a pair of brutal first half turnovers that gave Indiana the path to all of its points in regulation. Carr offered a bit more of a knack for scrambling than Underwood while having less evident arm talent. 

In moments he looked, expectedly, like an indecisive freshman, and finished 20-of-32 for 167 yards and the interception, plus a fumble.

Carr also took four sacks, a few on him and a few that were not his fault. One decidedly not his fault was the shambolic play fake out of the I formation at the Indiana one yard line on 3rd and goal early in the third quarter. Carr faked the give, which maybe would’ve scored if the play was a straight up run, and flipped around to immediately get sacked for a 13 yard loss. Michigan missed the field goal on 4th and goal (as part of a generally difficult day for the special teams and kicker Trey Butkowski.)

Whittingham described that play call as "not a good football call" after the game and said it’s one Beck wants back. Carr noted Indiana had the perfect call dialed up against it.  

Whittingham said that when the issues are this widespread and consistent, it’s reflective of coaching and not, ultimately, an indictment of the players' abilities. In that case, the indictments are quickly stacking up on the coaching staff. 

Take the first of Carr’s two turnovers, a fumble on a speed option to the left side where Indiana had it sniffed out and the quarterback pitched late after contact and coughed up a fumble. 

Whittingham said postgame that play was run the wrong direction, misread in the huddle. The offensive line blocked it one way while Carr and Savion Hiter went the other. A true freshman mistake, maybe, magnified exponentially amidst the context of Michigan’s season.

And while Indiana does have one of the better defenses in college football, Michigan flailed at running the ball on Saturday. Be it injuries — true freshman Marky Walbridge started at right tackle, among some other dings — a strong defense or a rushing scheme that Michigan’s players have, for seven games, struggled to execute or look confident in, the failures to run the ball have stood out for Michigan, too. Whittingham called it "abysmal" on Saturday.

On Saturday: 42 carries for 57 yards, 1.4 a carry. It goes up to 93 and 2.4 a carry when adjusting for sacks. 

Early in his postgame remarks, Whittingham identified the aforementioned warts — a failure to run the ball, collapsing in the red zone, and losing the turnover battle by one — as things that cost Michigan. 

They’re the things that have cost Michigan already this season; turnovers vs. Minnesota, field goals instead of touchdowns in the red zone vs. Iowa, and a failure to run the ball all throughout. Those same issues almost cost Michigan the season opener vs. Western Michigan, when it had scored seven points in 59:59 of game clock. 

Whittingham said that the Wolverines coaches will turn over every rock in trying to solve the problems, and even suggested the scheme could be modified. He delivered plenty of coach speak and even veered toward moral victory in pointing out Michigan played the No. 6 team in the country to overtime. He did not go so far as to suggest Beck’s job is in peril as scrutiny increases. 

“We’ve gotta get better,” Whittingham said.  

And Saturday showed Michigan is far more than the right quarterback away from it all looking right, as Carr delivered an Underwood-ian stat line, all while the former starter rode sidecar the whole game as a dutiful teammate. 

“Bryce all game was right on my side, helping me along through the way, watching film with me,” Carr said postgame. “Just picking me up when I made a bad play, and hyping me up when I made a good play. So he was helpful all game and I was grateful for that. 

Michigan being a bad team overall with a particularly bad offense would be something. Maybe not tolerable, but at least not something aggravating, frustrating, or generally engendering feelings of what could've been.

The Wolverines are not that, though.  

Michigan has a championship-level defense — one that would’ve shut out Indiana in regulation if the Hoosiers didn’t have a pair of short fields in the first half to kick field goals — that it’s squandering with languishing offensive outings.  

Indiana QB Josh Hoover, later revealed to be playing dinged up, threw for 81 yards on eight completions and didn’t complete a pass in the second half as Michigan’s defensive backs thwarted the likes of Nick Marsh (two catches, 25 yards) and Charlie Becker (three, 32). Michigan intercepted Hoover for the first time all season. The Hoosiers didn't cross the 50 in the second half.

And that interception set up Michigan’s first points, a short field goal after a few plays.  

"Overall, the whole defense, we did everything we could,” Berry said postgame. “I’m proud of the guys that we got on the field. I’m happy that we did everything we could."

The same can’t be said for Michigan’s offense.